FOX 32 goes inside the home of Laquan McDonald, speaks with family

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) - The family of Laquan McDonald is applauding Mayor Emanuel’s decision to fire Chicago’s Police Superintendent. And, they are disputing the idea that McDonald was a troubled teen from a broken home.

FOX 32’s Dane Placko payed a visit to the Englewood apartment where Laquan McDonald lived the last six months of his life with his uncle Shyrell Johnson and other family members.

His clothes are still in the closet.

“It's like the last thing we have of him," Johnson told FOX 32 News.

McDonald’s uncle and grandmother are angry at what they call “an unfair portrait of McDonald” as a troubled teen with a chaotic family background.

"All they was saying about him, digging up from when he was little, all that was a lie. Because nobody knows how he lived but us. He was with us all his life, since he was a newborn baby," Tracey Hunter, McDonald’s grandmother said.

DCFS records show McDonald was placed in a foster home for two months in 2000 and one month in 2003, but otherwise lived with his great grandmother until she passed away in 2014. That’s when a judge agreed to allow his uncle to take care McDonald, who says the 17 year old was turning his life around.

“Since he's been living with me, he was getting back on the right track. A job, back in school. Bringing in good grades. He told me he's doing this to better himself, to better his mom and his sister."

Family members say they were blindsided by news that there had been a $5 million settlement with the city after Laquan’s death, which they say was negotiated by his great uncle.

"No one in my family would settle for this. And if it was the case of this happening, I don't know about it, and I was his caregiver," Johnson said.

The family says they applaud the forced resignation of Chicago’s top cop, but say the housecleaning needs to go further...

“I honestly wish that everyone who had something to do with the cover-up of my nephew's death be penalized for it," Johnson said.

The family told FOX 32’s Dane Placko they are still mystified how McDonald wound up on the Southwest Side the night he was killed, which is miles away from his Englewood home and his old home on the West Side.